


Traces

by Kerioth



Category: Transistor (Video Game)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 17:28:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5464886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kerioth/pseuds/Kerioth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes some time to get used to the Country, but the important thing is that they're together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Traces

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kinneys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinneys/gifts).



“Hi.”

“Hey.”

Conversation doesn't come back right away, but their first embrace says most of what's initially on their minds. The little shake he gives her at the end of it is his only reproach for her method of getting there. Her wry smile in return is her only apology.

They stay close to the house for the first few days. In addition to the seemingly endless fields of grain, there's a vegetable garden outside the kitchen door. However, the pantry seems to keep itself stocked without any intervention.

“It's like Junction Jan's delivery, really,” she thinks, looking at the rows of containers and jars.

She always opens what she's looking for on the first try, but it doesn't register in her awareness at first. One morning, she wakes from a nightmare craving a cup of coffee, and heads downstairs to find him already making one just the way she likes it. There wasn't any coffee in the house the day before.

“I'm taking this as proof that whatever's in charge here wants us to be happy,” he says, holding out a mug.

“That's one way of looking at it,” she replies, lifting the mug to take a deep breath of the aroma. “I just... it makes me wonder what's coming next.”

Over the rest of the day, she begins questioning the nature of the place they live now. The quiet and the surroundings aren't like Cloudbank, except for things like the self-stocking pantry. Her sleeping mind hears the Process in every shift of the house or tap of branches on windows, but during the day she senses nothing to suggest that destructive presence.

The next morning, she wakes early and heads into the front room to sit in her favorite chair. Halfway across the room, she stops to stare at the guitar on its stand beside the chair. It looks just like the one she left in her Highrise apartment, down to the shape and color of the pick tucked under the strings halfway along the fingerboard. It could have been pulled straight from her memory. Even the angle of the light on the wood is just the way she remembers it from the last time she left, locking the door behind her.

The peace of the previous days – how long **has** it been? – is shattered by her sudden fear. Is all of this just a dream, a hallucination produced by her desperate desire for it to be true? The house settles around her, sounding like a groan. She squeezes her eyes shut, holding her breath for a count of three.

"Does it matter?" she thinks. She lets the breath out slowly, puts her hand out, and wraps her fingers around the neck of the guitar. "I'm not leaving."

*******

He comes downstairs an hour later, drawn to the open front window by the sound of strummed chords. He catches sight of her sitting among the gently blowing stalks of grain in front of the house, her hair loose, playing toward a melody he hasn't heard before. The notes are hesitant, as though she's remembering how to compose. The sound reminds him of loss and confusion and then suddenly of fierce clinging to the only solid thing left at the center of a world in chaos. As his head swims, he grips the windowsill to remind himself that it's still there, that he's still here.

When the music changes, accompanied now by humming, he opens his eyes, realizing that he'd closed them against the sudden vertigo. Under the wide blue sky, dotted with clouds, the golden grain glows like her red hair. It's much warmer than Cloudbank was – not the temperature as much as an overall feeling about the air, the space outside, the quiet background of water flowing in a streambed at the foot of the garden. It's peaceful, which makes it easy to lean on the window frame and listen to her song, letting time slide by.

She's swaying slowly back and forth, a self-comforting movement like the humming is a self-comforting sound. The moment stretches, unhurried as all their days are, now. Free of the urgency that used to press them forward. The music ends gently, and she sits perfectly still for a few breaths before rising to her feet and carrying the guitar back into the house. He turns away from the window as she enters the room. There's a stand for the guitar next to the chair he thinks of as her chair, and his brow furrows as he watches her place the guitar on the stand. “How long has that been there?” he thinks.

“Come on,” she says, breaking his train of thought by taking his hand and pulling him behind her toward the front door. “Let's go exploring.”

“Okay,” he says. Following her has become a habit, but he's also curious about what they'll find.

They head straight out from the house, through the field and down the hill. The stalks of grain in the field are tall enough to block their vision. When they reach the edge of a clearing, he glances back toward the house. It's still visible, but it's difficult to tell how far away it is. In the clearing is a collection of chest-high, eight-sided metal containers, in three rows of five each. “Fifteen,” he thinks, the calculation automatic.

“I... remember this,” she says quietly. Hearing the tremor in her voice, he squeezes her hand.

“Should we leave?” He searches the opposite edge of the clearing for signs of movement.

She shakes her head, then says, “No. I – I think it's all right.” She takes a step toward the nearest container. When they're close enough to touch it, she puts her free hand out, and the softly glowing blue symbol on the front flares to read, “Subject: Yon-Dale, F.” The sound it makes is a familiar electronic warbling, and he tips his head to the side, trying to understand it.

“Farrah?” he asks, speaking in the general direction of the container. “Are... you in there?” The warbling sounds like a reply, but he can't make out anything beyond a sense of quiet anticipation.

“If she's here, then... the rest of these... Are these the rest of them?” he says, looking back up from the container in front of them across the rest of the clearing.

As he scans the group of containers, he realizes that the two on the end of the first row look different from the others. They're open, lids propped against the sides, their symbols dark. She notices the change in his expression and follows his gaze to the open containers, then releases his hand to move toward them. He follows more slowly, pausing as he passes the container next to Farrah's to confirm his suspicion. The symbol on this container reads, “Subject: Tennigan, W.”

The labels on the open containers are dead, whatever data they once contained erased, but standing close to them stirs a memory of darkness and silence. He blinks hard once and steps back, fighting a fresh wave of vertigo. She turns her head from inspecting the inside of the container on the corner and moves back toward him, lacing her fingers through his and gripping his hands tightly.

“What do you think?” she asks. "Should we open them?" Her gaze is steady, her voice free of its earlier tremor.

“I think... we shouldn't leave them. Not like this.”

They try to lift the lid from Farrah's container first, standing on opposite sides. No amount of brute force seems to make a difference, and he comes around to sit next to her with their backs against the container while they catch their breath.

“What now?” he asks when she stands, stretching her arms one at a time behind her shoulders. She shrugs, but then her gaze shifts to the horizon, eyes unfocusing while she gives the problem some additional thought.

“I want to take another look at that symbol before we let it go,” she says. She offers him a hand up.

This time, instead of pulling her hand back after the symbol reads off its label, she presses her palm against it. The container's warbling changes to a sustained pitch, and she hums a matching note, closing her eyes to concentrate. When she lifts her hand back off of the symbol, its glow has shifted to a slow pulse, like a resting heartbeat. The label swaps between two messages, changing in time with the pulse: “Loading … Subject: Yon-Dale, F. … Loading …”

Their eyes meet, and in response to her raised eyebrow, he says, “Give it a minute. Try one of the others next?”

“You try one, too,” she says, moving to the next container on the row.

Matching each container's pitch doesn't seem to be necessary, thankfully, as he doesn't have her ear for sound. They work their way across the first row, then the second, moving on when the “Loading …” message appears. On the third row, she takes the first container (Subject: Gilande, B.) and turns to find him staring at the next label.

“Who is it?” she asks.

“Sybil.” He can't keep the bitterness out of his voice – he isn't ready to forgive and forget, not yet. Maybe not ever.

She trails her hand across his shoulders as she moves past him, taking his left hand in her right and drawing him after her to check the last three. After Sybil, he isn't surprised to see them: “Subject: Kendrell, G.” “Subject: Kendrell, A.” “Subject: Bracket, R.”

“We have time,” she says. “They're not going anywhere.”

Before he can decide on a reply, they hear a thud and a hiss of released pressure behind them that makes them both jump and turn toward the sound, pulses racing. One of the containers releases a cloud of white vapor, growing larger as the lid slides to the side and thumps into the ground. One by one, the rest of the activated containers start to open. When the first figures appear, rising out of the vapor clouds, they realize the significance of what they've started.

“It'll be all right,” she says. He isn't sure whether she means to reassure him, or herself.

“Just... just stay with me, okay?”

“Always.” She smiles, and leans up to brush a kiss across his lips.

They head back to the side of the clearing closest to the house, turning again to face the group of people starting to cluster together, shading their eyes against the glare of the midday sun and murmuring questions like “What happened?” and “Where are we?” Nine faces turn toward them, their expressions a mixture of fear and hope.

She speaks first: “Welcome to the Country.”


End file.
